My Mrs. Brown (25 page)

In the interim while the tailoring took place, Rachel had arranged a little surprise. As a present, Mrs. Brown would be getting her hair done today, plus manicure and pedicure, at the renowned Kenneth salon. Although it's closed now, at the time it was still enshrined at the Waldorf Astoria hotel.

The bags were unzipped, and out came two sizes of
the
dress, and two sizes of the notch-collared jacket that went with it. As if the sovereign in royal robes had just entered the room, the feeling of awe that she had experienced when she first saw this style in Mrs. Groton's closet returned. Mrs. Brown steadied herself.

Rachel nodded in Daniel's direction, indicating it was time for Mrs. Brown to try on the dresses without male eyes on her.

“I'll be right outside if you need anything,” he said.

Rachel suggested trying the size eight first. Mrs. Brown disrobed, carefully placing her gray trousers and brown twinset on a lemon-yellow velvet chair. Who but Rachel right now had seen her so nearly naked in years? No one.

It was a ceremony practiced over the ages: the fitting. In high fashion, it's where the magic happens—well, if you are in the right hands. Mrs. Brown most certainly was.

Rachel held the black, light-wool-crepe sheath for Mrs. Brown. Mrs. Brown, right foot first, stepped into the dress. Rachel zipped the back zipper for her, but with difficulty.

Mrs. Brown looked in the three-way mirror, and her heart sank. The dress didn't fit. Mrs. Brown felt her disappointment deeply. To her, this was more than a dress. It was a calling.

Rachel whispered something to the seamstress that Mrs. Brown couldn't hear. “Let's try the size ten,” she said.

The size ten was the charm. How wonderful the silk lining felt, but when the dress was zipped, it was too big.

What to do?

“Take it in, let it out, to be or not to be, I say go with the size ten,” the seamstress finally said. She spoke with an accent Mrs. Brown couldn't place.

“You think that is better than working with the eight?” Rachel asked, her mobile phone beeping nonstop as it had all morning. “I thought the eight fit perfectly across the bosom. And we've got to try on the jackets, too.”

The seamstress gave her a look. Translated, it said: get out of my kitchen.

Rachel laughed. “You're the boss, Irina.”

Mrs. Brown, with her knowledge of sewing, knew that Irina had a lot of work to do. She worried how much it would cost. Even in Ashville the tailor at the dry cleaner's would probably charge at least one hundred dollars. How much, then, on Madison Avenue? Not to mention the time it would take.

Irina read Mrs. Brown's mind. “Four hours, including the jacket.”

“Excellent,” Rachel said.

Mrs. Brown didn't understand.

“It's eleven now? I can have this for you by three o'clock. You try on one more time and I make last fixes and then you go to train station in time, okay?” the seamstress asked.

“Yes, okay.” Mrs. Brown was delighted. “But the cost . . .”

“Alterations are included, Mrs. Brown,” Rachel said. She stepped out of the dressing room to take a call.

“We get to work,” the seamstress said, her pins ready. “My name is Mrs. Novikov, Irina Novikov.”

“How do you do, Mrs. Novikov, I am . . .”

Mrs. Novikov, pins in her mouth, interrupted: “I know who you are. You are famous in our office, even more than the fancy actresses we fit in the clothes.”

She gestured with her jaw for Mrs. Brown to pivot. Mrs. Novikov continued pinching and pinning the dress.

“I am famous in your office? How's that?”

The seamstress looked Mrs. Brown in the eyes and gently nodded. “We heard about a woman maybe a lot like us, not from here, worked hard, saved her money so she could buy a lady's dress, and she traveled here her first time all alone to get it. And how Miss Ames, tough cookie, the ice princess, she melted. She helped you! She wouldn't always. Everyone is talking. Know why?”

“Why?”

“Everyone say Rachel Ames found her heart yesterday thanks to you.”

She continued pinning. Mrs. Brown was astonished by her expertise. “Women like us,” Irina Novikov said, her voice sounding melancholy, “women like us, we are ladies, too, but no one sees us that way. We are invisible. But what do they see, what do they want? Baby dolls. Painted, silly, aging dolls. Women like us,” she said, “we're treated like dead trees.”

Mrs. Brown understood.

“But, ah, my friend, no one sees our roots, still growing, deeper and deeper.” Mrs. Novikov adjusted the pins in her mouth and kept working, and talking.

“I have two sons fighting in the wars. Born here in America so they can go to war. I should dye my hair like a lemon, dress up like a Barbie doll, or spend all my money shopping, and save nothing? No. I am grown woman.” She paused. “I'm the mother of two boys who are United States of America soldiers. The strongest limb on the tree bends so it won't break. I bend. I worry all day. I worry every night, but”—she pointed at her gray eyes with heavy lids and deep lines—“does anyone see my tears? Never, never here . . .”

Mrs. Brown put her right hand on Mrs. Novikov's shoulder for balance.

“It's going to be okay, dear,” Mrs. Novikov promised. “Put on the jacket now.”

The jacket completed the regal picture. Its lining felt so soft, made of the finest silk imaginable. The shoulders of the size ten fit perfectly, but Mrs. Norikov said she wanted to take in the waist a bit and shorten the sleeves.

“It's not a problem. You have your dress at three today, and at three today you leave here a queen! Better than the movie stars! They have all the ‘hoochie-coochie,' but you will have respect.”

A
T FIRST MRS. BROWN
questioned Rachel's invitation to have her hair done, a manicure and a pedicure, at the Kenneth salon. How much would it cost? At least four times what they charged at Bonnie's, and that wouldn't be cheap.

She needn't worry about the money. Rachel said the salon owed her a favor, and she'd appreciate the company as she was scheduled to have her hair done that day anyway.

“But everything,” Mrs. Brown said, and hesitated. “A new dress, getting our hair done, you don't think, given what day it is, that it isn't in . . .”

“In bad taste?” Rachel said. “Because it's September eleventh?”

Mrs. Brown nodded. “Yes, that's what I'm thinking.”

Rachel smiled. “What would Mrs. Groton do?”

Mrs. Brown liked the question but wasn't sure of the answer.

“She'd get her hair done, paint her face, put on her best dress, and show the bastards you can't keep a good woman down. And that's just what we're going to do today, Mrs. Brown. Okay?”

“Okay,” Mrs. Brown said. “Okay!”

Rachel had a car and driver waiting to take them to the salon. As they walked to the car, Rachel remembered a favorite story Mrs. Groton had told her.

At the start of World War II, an editor for a newspaper called
PM,
no longer in print, wrote an editorial calling “for everything relating to fashion to be put on ice in penance until the war was won,” Rachel said.

He singled out
Vogue
magazine. Why? Perhaps his wife was reading it when he woke up on the wrong side of the bed.

“What American people have to realize is that
Vogue
magazine, which only a few years ago was very real, is now only a temporary illusion,” the editor wrote.

“He wanted the magazine to stop publishing out of respect for the troops and the struggles of their families living on rations at home,” Rachel explained.

But the editor in chief of the fashion magazine, Edna Woolman Chase, didn't see things that way, not at all.

In defense of gracious living, one of American democracy's greatest freedoms, Mrs. Chase fired off a letter to the gentleman, and said: “We shall not be unmindful of the changing times. If the new order is to be one of sackcloth and ashes, we think some women will wear theirs with a difference!
Vogue
will cut the pattern for them, for we still believe that we shall survive.”

Rachel opened the car door for Mrs. Brown. “That's real grit, isn't? Even if it's sackcloth, a strong woman wears hers with style.”

Lexington Avenue was the quicker route, but Rachel wanted to enter the Waldorf at its main doorway, on Park Avenue, so Mrs. Brown could experience the full impact of the hotel's busy lobby.

On the way to the salon, Rachel explained that Kenneth Battelle had created hairstyles for Brooke Astor, Babe Paley, Katharine Graham, Gloria Vanderbilt, Jacqueline Kennedy, and Marilyn Monroe, but most famously, Mrs. Brown thought, he did Millicent Groton's hair.

Kenneth had visited Ashville on a number of occasions over the years. There had been an article about him, in
Vanity Fair
if Mrs. Brown remembered correctly, several years ago. All the women at Bonnie's had read it with great interest.

Rachel talked away but rarely looked up from her phones. “I really apologize for being so lost in my work today, but with Oscar's show coming up, there's so much to do, Mrs. Brown.”

It was a bit of a lie. Crazy-busy Fashion Weeks were nothing new, and Rachel was supremely well organized. But she was coordinating one last surprise for Mrs. Brown. That is, if television's Charlie Rose didn't mind waiting fifteen minutes to tape his studio interview with Oscar this afternoon.

The Kenneth salon was even more splendid than Mrs. Brown could have imagined. And it was so quiet! Is that what real luxury is? Quietude? It isn't a loud three-ring circus somewhere? Compared to Bonnie's hysterics, cursing, and lousy TV at top volume, this was a Zen monastery in the Swiss Alps.

Handsome, hirsute, with thick beard and ginger features, Andy was the head hair man at the salon. He wore alligator clogs with silver pilgrim buckles and had eagles, balloons, and chains tattooed on his forearms. He closely examined Mrs. Brown's hair and proposed a light color rinse and feathered trim at the crown to add volume.

“But other than that I like your cut now,” he said.

Her expression questioned his sincerity.

“I really do. Who does your hair, Mrs. Brown?” Andy asked.

She hesitated before answering, but why should she be embarrassed? Wasn't that one of the main messages she'd gotten since she arrived in New York City? Be yourself.

“I cut my own hair,” Mrs. Brown said.

“I'm impressed!” Andy said.

She was pleased that he was impressed, especially considering her new hairdressing job at Bonnie's.

But you know what impressed Mrs. Brown most about Kenneth's? Coffee cups and teacups were covered with silver foil so any loose hair, scent, or hair spray didn't come anywhere near your beverage of choice. (Which in the case of the grande dame sitting next to Mrs. Brown today was a five-ounce glass of vodka on ice with a splash of fresh grapefruit juice that, at least in the mind of the grande dame, qualified the beverage as a health food drink.)

This kind of cleanliness and good order, along with the luxurious quiet, was the height of chic in Mrs. Brown's opinion.

With her hair done, nails manicured, and toes pedicured in clear matte polish, the only color she liked for herself, Mrs. Brown was declared “sublime.” That was Rachel's word.

When they returned to the store on Sixty-sixth Street, Mrs. Brown was ushered to the changing room so quickly she didn't notice the small group of people clustered around a white-linen-covered table.

Mrs. Novikov was exhausted from working so hard and so fast, tailoring the dress and jacket in record time. She was also extremely pleased. As she helped Mrs. Brown into her new dress, with each millimeter of zip Mrs. Novikov's sense of pride grew.

“It's a miracle you could do this. But how did you do this?” Mrs. Brown asked. The tailoring was incredible.

“I've a few secrets?” Mrs. Novikov said, and laughed.

“It's like being held up by angels,” Mrs. Brown said, rejoicing in the support of such a finely constructed dress. The matching jacket was just as edifying.

Rachel entered the dressing room carrying a pair of black croc leather pumps and a black cashmere cardigan sweater.

“You look wonderful, Mrs. Brown! How does the dress feel?” Rachel asked.

“I can't do it justice,” Mrs. Brown answered. “I can't explain it. It feels as I hoped it would but even better.”

Rachel asked Mrs. Brown to turn so she could inspect all aspects of the dress. “You did an exceptional job, Mrs. Novikov. Truly amazing.”

“Yes, I did,” Mrs. Novikov said.

“Oh,” Rachel said, “these shoes. Try them on. They will go well with the dress. And also try this cardigan. Sometimes you won't want to wear the matching jacket. It's a good look, too, more modern than the jacket . . .”

The expression on Mrs. Novikov's face left no doubt that she disapproved of what Rachel was saying.